My Message to Girls: Be Bossy!

A bunch of aggrieved women led by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg launched a high-profile “public service campaign” this week to “ban” the word “bossy.” Sandberg, Beyonce, Victoria “Posh Spice” Beckham and first lady Michelle Obama have joined femme forces to combat this phantom menace. In their rarefied world, it’s a “very negative experience” and a crippling act of gender discrimination to be called bossy. “This isn’t a word we should use,” Sandberg complained on National Public Radio.

To which I say: Oh, buck up.

The key to female empowerment doesn’t lie with wheedling word police. It lies with girls and women finding the courage to speak and act on their beliefs and principles without regard to their detractors’ opinions.

My message to girls, including my own 13-year-old daughter, is not: “Ban Bossy.” My message is: Be: Bossy. And that means first being the boss of you.

Here is my own little story. Over the past 20 years, I have gained a reputation as mouthy, aggressive, overbearing and, yes, bossy. I’ve barreled my way through interviews on “The View” and the “Today” show, arguing over Joy Behar and Matt Lauer. I’ve battled with some of the biggest blowhards in politics, media and Hollywood.

But I wasn’t always this way. In grade school, I was shy to the point of verbal paralysis. I failed a speech class because I was terrified to stand up in class with 30 sets of eyes staring at me. I was a doormat and a wallflower, not because I was afraid of being labeled “pushy” or “bossy,” but because I was afraid of owning my own thoughts, beliefs and work.

What changed? In college, I got sick of other people — especially, ahem, of bossy liberal white women — pretending to speak for me. I learned to say “no” when everyone around me expected and demanded “yes.” I learned to cut my own path and not give a damn whether anyone followed. I wasn’t held back by how others perceived me. I was held back by how I perceived myself.

Sandberg and her friends think “bossy” (which she calls “the other b-word”) is worth ginning up an entire media campaign over — even enlisting White House officials and cabinet members. But women with unpopular ideas and opinions face a daily barrage of unprintable c-words, f-words, s-words and w-words that are far worse. If we launched media campaigns to ban every ugly word that comes our way, we wouldn’t have time to get anything else done.

It is a blessing to be able to make a living exercising the First Amendment. It would be an absolute waste of those precious free speech rights for any woman to pull her punches for fear of, gasp, an adjective.

Girls, here’s the truth about the Ban Bossy campaign: It’s being spearheaded by a privileged group of elite feminists who have a very vested interest in stoking victim politics and exacerbating the gender divide. They actually encourage dependency and groupthink while paying lip service to empowerment and self-determination. They traffic in bogus wage disparity statistics, whitewashing the fact that what’s actually left of that dwindling pay gap is due to the deliberate, voluntary choices women in the workforce make. This includes which industries women enter, how long they stay, what levels they attain, and when and how they decide to start a family.

The supposedly abhorrent unequal outcomes that “progressive” women want to eradicate don’t always come down to sexism. It’s not just a gender thing. It’s a freedom thing.

I want young girls and young ladies to know that whatever adversity you might face, there has never been a better time to be an American woman. You have more educational, economic and entrepreneurial opportunities than generations of women before you. You have more flexibility, more choices and more ways to spread your messages and make yourself heard than ever before.

Don’t just be bossy. Be your own boss. When I started two Internet companies, I didn’t ask for anyone’s permission. I didn’t let anyone stop me. I didn’t wallow in self-pity about the odds stacked against me or the derision that greeted me. And when times were tough, I didn’t blame The Man. I woman-ed up.

Gals, you don’t need the sensitivity brigade to protect you from criticism or attacks. You need to learn from them and rise above them, not censor them. And if anyone tells you to tone it down, do the opposite: Crank it up and don’t look back. That’s an order!

Michelle Malkin is the author of “Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks and Cronies” (Regnery 2010). Her e-mail address is: [email protected].

The word Bossy fits them so well and they know it along with another B Word, so let’s keep using it to describe the very one’s it Describes! Guess they never heard of Freedom of Speech, Bossy Bunch pigs so next they will want to ban the word Pig because it will fit them too!

The word Bossy fits them so well and they know it along with another B Word, so let’s keep using it to describe the very one’s it Describes! Guess they never heard of Freedom of Speech, Bossy Bunch pigs so next they will want to ban the word Pig because it will fit them too!

The word Bossy fits them so well and they know it along with another B Word, so let’s keep using it to describe the very one’s it Describes! Guess they never heard of Freedom of Speech, Bossy Bunch pigs so next they will want to ban the word Pig because it will fit them too!

The word Bossy fits them so well and they know it along with another B Word, so let’s keep using it to describe the very one’s it Describes! Guess they never heard of Freedom of Speech, Bossy Bunch pigs so next they will want to ban the word Pig because it will fit them too!

The word Bossy fits them so well and they know it along with another B Word, so let’s keep using it to describe the very one’s it Describes! Guess they never heard of Freedom of Speech, Bossy Bunch pigs so next they will want to ban the word Pig because it will fit them too!

I can’t imagine the likes of Beyonce giving any kind of message to empower women. She’s the epitome of use your body to get what you want. I’m surprised Mikey and Lady Gaga didn’t jump on that band wagon.

I can’t imagine the likes of Beyonce giving any kind of message to empower women. She’s the epitome of use your body to get what you want. I’m surprised Mikey and Lady Gaga didn’t jump on that band wagon.

I can’t imagine the likes of Beyonce giving any kind of message to empower women. She’s the epitome of use your body to get what you want. I’m surprised Mikey and Lady Gaga didn’t jump on that band wagon.

Why are white people always construed as bad? Is it because it’s PC to demonize white people? Liberal feminists come in all colors. Only the white ones bothered you? It’s difficult to teach my six kids to be loving towards everyone when they feel like they are bad without ever doing anything to feel bad about. White people are, apparently, the scourge of the earth. All other cultures treat us as such. It is taught in our schools, openly. I am disappointed. Not all progressives are white. It should not be considered appropriate to generalize in this manner…by anyone.

Why are white people always construed as bad? Is it because it’s PC to demonize white people? Liberal feminists come in all colors. Only the white ones bothered you? It’s difficult to teach my six kids to be loving towards everyone when they feel like they are bad without ever doing anything to feel bad about. White people are, apparently, the scourge of the earth. All other cultures treat us as such. It is taught in our schools, openly. I am disappointed. Not all progressives are white. It should not be considered appropriate to generalize in this manner…by anyone.

Michelle, ma belle! You ROCK! Like you, I grew a thick skin to enable me to do what I wanted. The answer is not to force the world to pussy-foot around weaklings ( because the world doesn’t listen! ) -it is to make the weaklings strong. I wanted to make the same money guys did so I did “guy” jobs-joined the army, drove a truck-and sweated, bled, and cried a bunch but I grew a sterling character as a result of the trials and gained the respect of my male co-workers.

I ain’t rich but I’ve bought three little houses in the last fifteen years by working nights, weekends, and holidays driving a tractor-trailer, dropping and hooking trailers in all kinds of weather-there’s a reason “men’s” jobs pay more; they are harder! And through it all I had to be bossy. I had to get that way a couple of days ago with a shop foreman, AAMOF. The truck I was assigned had damage on the front bumper and I wasn’t leaving until he signed off that it was done before I accepted the dispatch and he balked. I had to use assertive ( NOT foul ) language to assure him I was not leaving until he signed and he did!

So, yeah, girls don’t need to be protected from words. If you’re going to be different you have to be strong! Keep harrying the liberals-we love you!

Michelle, ma belle! You ROCK! Like you, I grew a thick skin to enable me to do what I wanted. The answer is not to force the world to pussy-foot around weaklings ( because the world doesn’t listen! ) -it is to make the weaklings strong. I wanted to make the same money guys did so I did “guy” jobs-joined the army, drove a truck-and sweated, bled, and cried a bunch but I grew a sterling character as a result of the trials and gained the respect of my male co-workers.

I ain’t rich but I’ve bought three little houses in the last fifteen years by working nights, weekends, and holidays driving a tractor-trailer, dropping and hooking trailers in all kinds of weather-there’s a reason “men’s” jobs pay more; they are harder! And through it all I had to be bossy. I had to get that way a couple of days ago with a shop foreman, AAMOF. The truck I was assigned had damage on the front bumper and I wasn’t leaving until he signed off that it was done before I accepted the dispatch and he balked. I had to use assertive ( NOT foul ) language to assure him I was not leaving until he signed and he did!

So, yeah, girls don’t need to be protected from words. If you’re going to be different you have to be strong! Keep harrying the liberals-we love you!